Photonics and LED Lighting News

Vector polarizers are a light filtering technology hidden behind the operation of many optical systems. They can be found, for instance, in sunglasses, LCD screens, microscopes, microprocessors, laser machining and more. Optical physicists from Nanjing and Nankai University, China, and the University of Central Florida, U.S., published details of their new vector polarizer design this week in APL Photonics. The newly proposed design is a major advance in polarization technology because it enables flexible filtering of a wide range of light sources and generation of new light states.

Researchers have demonstrated prototype windows that switch from reflective to clear with the simple addition of a liquid. The new switchable windows are easy to manufacture and could one day keep parked cars cool in the sun or make office buildings more energy efficient. The technology can also be used to make roof panels that keep houses cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

Cell biologists traditionally use fluorescent dyes to label and visualize cells and the molecules within them under a microscope. With different super-resolution microscopy methods, they can even light up single molecules and their complex interactions with one another. However, the microscopy hardware that allows them to do this is highly specialized and expensive and hence, relatively rare in laboratories around the world, and the operation of such microscopes is daunting, as it requires unique skills.

Concerning the development of quantum memories for the realization of global quantum networks, scientists of the Quantum Dynamics Division led by Professor Gerhard Rempe at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) have now achieved a major breakthrough: they demonstrated the long-lived storage of a photonic qubit on a single atom trapped in an optical resonator. The coherence time of the stored quantum bit outlasts 100 milliseconds and therefore matches the requirement for the creation of a global quantum network in which qubits are directly teleported between end nodes. "The coherence times that we achieve represent an improvement by two orders of magnitude compared to the current state-of-the-art," says Professor Rempe. The study is published in Nature Photonics today.

Military and civil authorities could benefit from secure optical communication systems that use light to carry messages between moving vehicles. Researchers at KAUST have now demonstrated rapid data transfer using ultraviolet-B (UV-B) light, which provides many advantages over visible light.

The inside of an electron microscope, which requires vacuum levels similar to those encountered in outer space, can be an extremely inhospitable place for organic materials. Traditionally, life scientists have circumvented this problem by freezing their specimens so that that they can be safely loaded into a microscope. Now, researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) have devised a new approach to imaging organic compounds.

Atoms and molecules can be made to emit photons. However, without external intervention, this process is inefficient and undirected. If it was possible to influence the process of photon creation in terms of efficiency and emission direction, new technical possibilities would be possible, including tiny, multifunctional light pixels that could be used to build three-dimensional displays or reliable single-photon sources for quantum computers or optical microscopes to map individual molecules.

Using nanoscale grass-like structures, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania have created glass that lets through a large amount of light while appearing hazy. This is the first time that glass has been made with such high levels of haze and light transmittance at the same time, a combination of properties that could help boost the performance of solar cells and LEDs.

Whatever the size of mobile phones or computers are, the way in which such electronic devices operate relies on the interactions between materials. For this reason, engineers as well as researchers need to know exactly how specific chemical elements inside a computer chip or a transistor diode behave, and what happens when these elements bond. Physicists of Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany, have now developed an innovative method that enables them to obtain several different types of information simultaneously from the interior of a nanoscale building block—and this while it is in the active state. The researchers from Jena and their partners have reported their findings in the current issue of the specialist journal Science Advances.

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Scientists at DESY have developed novel lenses that enable X-ray microscopy with record resolution in the nanometre regime. Using new materials, the research team led by DESY scientist Sasa Bajt from the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) has perfected the design of specialised X-ray optics and achieved a focus spot size with a diameter of less than ten nanometres. A nanometre is a millionths of a millimetre and is smaller than most virus particles. The researchers report their work in the journal Light: Science and Applications. They successfully used their lenses to image samples of marine plankton.

Researchers have developed a new imaging system that is designed to monitor the health of crops in the field or greenhouse. The new technology could one day save farmers significant money and time by enabling intelligent agricultural equipment that automatically provides plants with water or nutrients at the first signs of distress. With further development, the system has the potential to be used aboard unmanned aerial vehicles to remotely monitor crops.

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Researchers at Duke University have devised a way to see through walls using a narrow band of microwave frequencies without any advance knowledge of what the walls are made out of. Besides having obvious applications in the realm of security, the approach could lead to inexpensive devices to help construction workers easily locate conduits, pipes and wires.

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MUSE image of sebaceous glandA microscope using ultraviolet light to illuminate samples enables pathologists to assess high-resolution images of biopsies and other fresh tissue samples for disease within minutes, without requiring the time-consuming preparation of conventional slides or destroying the tissue.

Physicists in the Laboratory for Attosecond Physics (run jointly by LMU Munich and the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics) have developed an attosecond electron microscope that allows them to visualize the dispersion of light in time and space, and observe the motions of electrons in atoms.

A team of scientists from the Faculty of Physics of Lomonosov Moscow State University and their colleagues developed a compact spectral polarimeter for carrying out mineralogical investigations on the surfaces of astronomical bodies. The description of the device and the results of prototype testing were published in Optics Express.

A group of physicists from Russia, Sweden and the U.S. has demonstrated a highly unusual optical effect. They managed to "virtually" absorb light using a material that has no light-absorbing capacity. The research findings, published in Optica, break new ground for the creation of memory elements for light.

A research team of at DGIST has unveiled a new high-performance photodiode that reduces thickness to one-sixth of conventional silicon photodiodes. According to the researchers, they worked to develop a technology to increase the stability and performance of photodiodes using cubic perovskite nanocrystals. Applying this technology to future photodiodes will contribute to the fields that require high accumulation and resolution.

A newly developed microscope is providing scientists with a greatly enhanced tool to study how neurological disorders such as epilepsy and Alzheimer's disease affect neuron communication. The microscope is optimized to perform studies using optogenetic techniques, a relatively new technology that uses light to control and image neurons genetically modified with light-sensitive proteins.

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have invented a new approach to testing multilayered, three-dimensional computer chips that are now appearing in some of the latest consumer devices. The new method may be the answer the semiconductor industry needs to quickly assess the reliability of this relatively new chip construction model, which stacks layers of flat circuitry atop one another like floors in a building to help make chips ever-faster and packed with features.

Add one more thing to the list of tasks your smartphone can perform. University of Houston researchers have released an open-source dataset offering instructions to people interested in building their own smartphone microscope.

On the quest for miniaturization, scientists at the Center for Integrated Nanostructure Physics, within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS, South Korea), in collaboration with researchers from the University of Birmingham and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), develop credit card-thick, flat lenses with tunable features. These optical devices, made of graphene and a punctured gold surface, could become optical components for advanced applications, such as amplitude tunable lenses, lasers (i.e. vortex phase plates), and dynamic holography.

The secrets of 17th century artists can now be revealed, thanks to 21st century signal processing. Using modern high-speed scanners and the advanced signal processing techniques, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are peering through layers of pigment to see how painters prepared their canvasses, applied undercoats, and built up layer upon layer of paint to produce their masterpieces.

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have created a novel hybrid of graphene and quantum dots, a breakthrough that may inspire highly efficient and controllable next-generation displays and LEDs.

Since their invention in 1962, semiconductor diode lasers have revolutionized communications and made possible information storage and retrieval in CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray devices. These diode lasers use inorganic semiconductors grown in elaborate high vacuum systems. Now, a team of researchers from Penn State and Princeton University have taken a big step toward creating a diode laser from a hybrid organic-inorganic material that can be deposited from solution on a laboratory benchtop.

Scientists from ITMO University have suggested a new solar cell coating that combines features of an electrode and those of a light-trapping structure. The coating enabled researchers to cut down on reflected light and avoid solar cell overheating, thus increasing its overall efficiency by 20 percent. Moreover, the suggested method may be attractive for industrial applications due to its relatively low cost and simplicity. The results of the research were published in Optics Letters.

Specially tailored, ultrafast pulses of light can trigger neurons to fire and could one day help patients with light-sensitive circadian or mood problems, according to a new study in mice at the University of Illinois.